I hear that a lot of my educator friends are teaching classes they never thought they’d teach right now. Tough times call for tough decisions and having a teacher in the room may be the option when it’s not an option to have a teacher who is certified in the subject area that needs to be taught.
Are you scared? Should you be? Imagine your child learning math from a person who can barely balance a checkbook or make change at the register. Imagine your child hearing “Let’s figure this out together” NOT because that approach can be a strong instructional practice that models problem-solving but because there’s genuinely no understanding of the solution. Math seems far too precious to shrug lightly about what may be happening to math instruction while our nation faces a teacher shortage.
What’s the solution? Let’s get students thinking about math – I mean really thinking about it. There’s a big difference between cranking out problem sets and engaging in deep thinking about mathematical concepts. Peter Liljedahl’s Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics is just what the doctor ordered for engaging students in deep, meaningful mathematical learning.
From Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes
Liljedahl’s book challenges educators to rethink what it means to be a “good teacher” and to reframe traditional notions of what a productive classroom looks like. His book also serves as the foundational resource for a course I highly recommend.
New Course:
Course 5154: Deep Thinking Practices for the Math Classroom
Grades: 4-12+ | 3-Credits | Graduate-Level
Course Description: Ready to disrupt the “learning-as-mimicry” pattern and replace it with genuine thinking in your math classroom? Explore the philosophy, practice, and long-term benefits of thinking classrooms and see how they apply to math. Your students will thank you for resetting their expectations of “correctness” and “completion” in mathematics while inspiring them to enjoy the variety and flexibility of solution pathways.
